Chapter 15 - The Child in Room 17
Emergency lights flickered on one by one.
The tunnel glowed red.
Ashley stood beside Emily, holding her arm.
Lena drew her weapon.
Sarah walked ahead, using Richard’s keycard on a steel security door.
The lock clicked open.
Beyond it was a hospital corridor preserved like a room abandoned in the middle of a conversation.
Old monitors stood beneath plastic covers.
Dust coated empty wheelchairs.
Faded numbers marked the doors.
Room 1.
Room 2.
Room 3.
At the end of the corridor, a modern security camera turned toward them.
“They still use this place,” Lena said.
Ruth touched the wall.
“I worked here once.”
Emily looked at her.
“In Ward Nine?”
“Only for six weeks.”
“What happened?”
“The program was shut down after three infants died.”
Ashley stared at her.
“Was I here?”
Ruth looked toward Room 17.
“Yes.”
The door opened automatically.
Inside, Michael sat in a chair with his injured shoulder bandaged. Two armed guards stood behind him.
Richard Carter waited beside a hospital bed.
He wore a dark suit beneath a white medical coat.
No one pointed a weapon at Emily.
They did not need to.
A woman lay unconscious in the bed.
Her face was pale and thin.
Her dark hair had turned mostly gray.
Ruth covered her mouth.
“Daniel.”
Emily looked at her.
“That’s not Daniel.”
“No,” Ruth whispered. “It’s Anna.”
Emily stopped breathing.
The woman in the bed looked older than the photograph, but the resemblance remained unmistakable.
Her cheekbones.
Her eyes beneath the closed lids.
The shape of her hands.
Emily took one step forward.
“My mother died.”
Richard smiled faintly.
“You buried a woman named Laura Reed.”
Ashley stared at the bed.
“We saw her body.”
“You saw a closed coffin.”
Emily looked at Michael.
He would not meet her eyes.
“You knew.”
“Not until tonight.”
Richard placed a hand on the bedrail.
“Anna has been here for twenty-one years.”
Ruth lunged forward.
Lena caught her.
“What did you do to her?” Ruth demanded.
“Kept her alive.”
“That isn’t living.”
Anna did not move.
A ventilator breathed for her.
Emily’s legs threatened to collapse.
“Why?”
Richard looked at her belly.
“Because her genetic line is unique.”
“She is a person.”
“She was a scientist. She understood sacrifice.”
“She ran from you.”
“She became confused.”
Ruth screamed, “You poisoned her!”
Richard’s guards moved closer.
Lena raised her weapon.
“Everyone stay where you are.”
Richard remained calm.
“You are standing inside a private medical research facility, Officer Ruiz.”
“You abducted patients.”
“I preserved lives.”
Emily approached the bed.
Michael stood.
“Don’t.”
She looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because the monitors are connected to a containment system.”
“What does that mean?”
Richard answered.
“If Anna’s condition destabilizes, the room seals automatically.”
Emily stared at her mother.
“Can she hear me?”
“Sometimes.”
Emily reached for Anna’s hand.
Michael stepped between them.
“Emily.”
She looked at his bandaged shoulder.
“You told me not to trust Ashley.”
“I was trying to warn you that Richard wanted him here.”
Ashley moved toward Michael.
“Why?”
Richard smiled.
“Because Subject R-1 is the only compatible donor.”
“For Anna?” Emily asked.
“No.”
Richard looked at her stomach.
“For the child.”
The baby moved inside Emily.
She placed both hands over it.
“What is wrong with my baby?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Yet?”
“The embryo Daniel implanted was incomplete.”
Ruth shook her head.
“That is impossible.”
Richard turned toward her.
“You never understood the full project.”
Ashley’s voice was quiet.
“What does compatible donor mean?”
“Your cells can stabilize the child after birth.”
“And if I refuse?”
Richard’s expression did not change.
“Then the child may not survive the first year.”
Emily looked at Michael.
“Is that true?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
Michael stepped closer.
“Because Richard promised to release Anna if I did.”
Emily laughed in disbelief.
“You believed him?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Michael looked at the guards.
One of them reached beneath his jacket.
Michael moved suddenly.
He struck the guard’s wrist.
A gun fired.
The bullet shattered a monitor.
Alarms screamed.
Lena tackled the second guard.
Ashley pulled Emily behind the bed.
Sarah grabbed Richard’s keycard.
Ruth ran to Anna.
The room’s steel doors began closing.
“Containment activated,” an automated voice announced.
Michael threw the first guard against the wall.
“Get Emily out!”
Ashley pushed against the closing door.
Sarah slid the keycard across the sensor.
The door stopped with less than a foot remaining.
“Go!” she shouted.
Emily crawled through.
Ashley followed.
Lena dragged Ruth away from the bed, but Ruth refused to release Anna’s hand.
“I’m not leaving her again!”
Richard reached for the control panel.
Michael aimed the fallen gun at him.
“Don’t.”
Richard looked at his son.
“You won’t shoot me.”
Michael’s hand trembled.
“You don’t know me anymore.”
“I created every opportunity you ever had.”
“You destroyed every person I loved.”
Richard glanced at Emily through the doorway.
“You never loved her. You were assigned to her.”
Michael’s eyes filled with something Emily could not name.
“Maybe at first.”
The room lights turned white.
Anna’s eyes opened.
Ruth froze.
“Anna?”
The woman’s lips moved.
No sound came.
Emily pushed back toward the door.
“Mom?”
Anna turned her head.
Her gaze found Emily.
For one impossible moment, recognition appeared in her eyes.
Then she looked at Ashley.
Her monitor began beeping faster.
Anna lifted one trembling hand and pointed at him.
Ashley leaned closer.
“What is it?”
Her mouth opened.
This time, a whisper escaped.
“Not… R-1.”
Everyone became still.
Richard’s face changed for the first time.
Real fear.
Anna drew another shallow breath.
She pointed toward Emily’s stomach.
“R-1.”
Emily looked down.
Richard reached for the alarm panel.
Michael raised the gun.
“What does she mean?”
Richard pressed a button.
The steel door slammed shut between them.
Emily pounded on the glass.
“Michael!”
Inside the sealed room, red gas began flowing from the ceiling vents.
Ruth covered Anna’s face.
Lena struck the door controls.
Michael aimed the gun at Richard.
The glass turned opaque.
Then every light in Ward Nine went out.
In the darkness, Emily heard the electronic lock release behind her.
A hidden door opened at the end of the corridor.
A man stepped through carrying Dr. Monroe’s missing letter.
His face was hidden beneath a surgical mask.
Ashley raised his flashlight.
The stranger removed the mask.
Ruth whispered his name.
“Daniel.”
Dr. Daniel Monroe looked at Emily’s stomach.
Then at Ashley.
“You have exactly eleven minutes before Richard’s team arrives.”
Emily gripped the yellow blanket.
“My mother said the baby is R-1.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
“No.”
He handed her the letter.
“She said you are.”
Before Emily could open it, a newborn’s cry echoed from somewhere beneath Ward Nine.
Emily looked toward the floor.
Daniel went pale.
“That’s impossible.”
The cry came again.
A baby.
Alive.
Hidden below them.
Sarah stared at the sealed doors.
“What is down there?”
Daniel turned toward the newly opened passage.
“The child Richard told everyone died twenty-nine years ago.”
Emily’s heart stopped.
May you like
Daniel stepped into the darkness.
“And she has been waiting for Emily.”
